3 Questions About the SEAL Team Six Helicopter Crash

The loss of a Chinook helicopter carrying members of Navy SEAL Team Six made yesterday the deadliest single day in the entire Afghan War for the U.S., The New York Times reports. Here are the three most pressing questions that need to be answered after this attack.

The loss of a helicopter carrying more than 20 U.S. special forces and as many as 8 other U.S. military service members is an unprecedented one in this war. The United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group (DevGru)—better known by its former name, Team 6-reportedly suffered the bulk of the casualties. The incident comes just months after DevGru's raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

Information about the incident is still trickling in, but these are a few of the most important questions in the immediate aftermath.

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Will special forces be put in greater danger during the drawdown of U.S. troops in Afghanistan?

Special Forces are expected to keep the pressure on the Taliban, working closely with Afghan forces to maintain control as U.S and Coalition troops depart. That means more raids, more targets and more reliance on Afghan competence—all of which add up to more special forces casualties.

This incident could be a sign of things to come: The crash happened in Tanji, where the U.S. closed a combat outpost in April. However, the AP has reported, the Afghan forces never staffed the outpost after American forces left, and the Taliban moved back in. That left it to Navy SEALs to undertake a dangerous raid in a notorious insurgent area to stem the Taliban's advance. As more responsibilities fall on the shoulders of special forces, the risk of more losses like this one will continue to increase.

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Was the helicopter shot down, as is being widely reported? And if so, what shot it down?

The Associated Press is reporting that a rocket attack took down the Chinook (probably a MH-47) , quoting an unnamed source in Washington D.C., but this has yet to be confirmed officially. The Taliban, of course, has taken credit, saying it shot down the helo during a special forces raid on a home.

For now, let's assume the Chinook was shot down, and by a rocket. Chinooks are American forces' preferred helicopters in Afghanistan because they are powerful enough fly over mountains while carrying a full complement of troops. They are also pretty tough; the only comparable loss to this one was a Chinook shot down in 2005. But Chinooks are at their most vulnerable while hovering in place during raids like the one this team is thought to have been conducting. They have to slow down to land or allow troops to rappel to the ground. However, it would be a very lucky shot to hit a moving Chinook with an RPG and they typically fly high to avoid such dangers as well as small arms fire.

But what if it was a more advanced missile? Insurgents in Iraq have used Russian-made SA-7s, shoulder-fired missiles tipped with infrared homing devices, against U.S. and British aircraft. There are more sophisticated threats out there, such as the SA-16. These missiles add ultraviolet tracking to infrared seekers, making them less susceptible to the flares that Chinooks fire to try to throw incoming missiles off course. Are such missiles appearing in Afghanistan? There's always the chance that Iran, which has them, or Pakistan, which conceivably could have bought some on the black market, supplied them to the Taliban.

It's a scary thought. However, a shoot down does not necessarily mean insurgents have changed their tactics or hardware. In fact, Chinooks are better protected from newer, more sophisticated threats than from older, more crude ones. These helicopters have been well protected from long-range missile attacks for years, but still have few defenses against a simple RPG fired at short range while the Chinook hovers in place.

Was it a coincidence that SEAL Team Six was on board?

DevGru is an emblem of U.S. military power, known worldwide. This crash is incredibly demoralizing. Could an enemy have specifically targeted the U.S. special forces team that took down bin Laden? It's certainly possible. Just last week the Afghans arrested an Army officer for aiding Taliban suicide bombers through checkpoints, and doing so under employ by Pakistan.

Special forces are very selective on who they partner with, but any collaboration with Afghans opens up U.S. Forces to the threat of spying. Several Afghans were on board and were killed, but trust is in short supply in Afghanistan. Add in the fact that more sophisticated foreign intelligence agents are on the ground, with signals intelligence assets and deep pockets, and you have a recipe for a plot.

But it's just as plausible that the Taliban got lucky. Helicopter raids are dangerous and unpredictable. Not all will end as well as bin Laden's takedown, as PM noted in July.

The U.S. Army knows the risks when it plans air assault operations in Afghanistan. Its planners and pilots must use whatever intelligence is available (which is usually pretty thin information, and comes from earlier attacks) to plan the flight route. To minimize the danger as much as possible, pilots will land Chinooks out of range of any weapons they know they enemy to have, and an Apache or a UAV will fly overhead to check for threats before the Chinooks drop off any soldiers. But special forces don't get such a cushion: Because they can react more quickly, they undertake more dangerous missions; their risk tolerance is much, much higher. Special forces routinely use helicopters in raids on homes in Afghanistan. This time, they might simply have run out of luck and encountered an RPG-armed enemy who was in the right place at the right time.

Coincidence or not, any Chinook shoot-down is a coup for the Taliban. But the Team Six connection makes it a major symbolic victory for them.